"...go to university" is perfectly acceptable where the poster lives.
Re:Help -- Keeping Linux in Developers' Ghetto
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KDE 2.2 Released
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· Score: 1
What a short-sighted response! So the only people who have a right to support Linux, comment on Linux, and suggest ways to improve Linux are people with the skills and the time to code for free? Good. That oughta put Linux on the road to oblivion.
I know this community likes to engage in a lot of Microsoft bashing, but there are many reasons for their success as an OS vendor that have little or nothing to do with their bullying business tactics They've actually come pretty close to building a consumer OS that ordinary people can use without reading a book or taking a class. You can't -- yet -- say that for Linux.
Give people what they want, not what you think they should want. .
Netscape Success Helps Open Source
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Netscape 6.1
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· Score: 1
Don't forget that a popular Netscape browser contributes to the long-term viability of open source. The single greatest threat to open source is the increasing market space occupied by Internet Explorer. No one but hard-core fans will run an operating system for which no browser exists.
I suppose this business of XP blocking drivers it thinks will gum up the works is going to trigger the usual flood of semi-rational and semi-profane rants about the Great Evil That Is Microsoft and how it is using its monopoly to thwart the Great Good Thing That is Open Source.
You know, I really think the average consumer oesn't care a bit about open souce, closed source, or shared source. Sure, maybe most people think that Microsoft shouldn't be such a bully, but that's not going to keep them from wanting to buy computers they can use without reading a book.
Wake up, folks. People don't really care about free software, open source and all the rest. No more than they'd be expected to care about Free Toasters and Open Refrigerators. They don't want choice if the choice means reading howto's and Unix manuals. They don't want to have the freedom to build their own computing environmen because computers are complicated, intimidating and scary.
If Microsoft disappeared tomorrow, Linux and all the other free Unixes still wouldn't be easy enough, simple enough, and attractive enough to fill the void.
So, rather then whining about how the Big Bully is keeping Your Favorite Unix LookAlike from taking over the world, how about getting busy and putting together on OS that is so outrageously good that people will wipe Windows from their PC's and buy it.
My first real job out of college -- that would be sometime before the PC era, boys and girls -- was as a tech writer for the (U.S.) Air Force. They were trying to automate their entire supply and maintanence chain. Instead of paying scads of thousands of green-eye-shade wearing bean counters, they wanted to use computers to push the supplies and maintenance out "just in time".
Well, it didn't work. But, the death throes took more than a year, 'cause little munchins faked data for their dog and pony shoes...and so it went up the ladder until heavyweights were sitting in front of Congressional committees mouthing the same lies. (Maybe unwittingly, maybe not.)
Faking it in those days was easy: Just put some phony numbers on a dot matrix printout.
Still, it was fun playing Lunar Lander on on a paper display, and using one of the first real CRT displays to send email.
Kernighan and Plaugher's "Software Tools", either the Ratfor or the Pascal version.Just a stupendous book, especially for understanding the basic concepts behind much of Unix. I managed to implement their code in Turbo Pascal for DOS, Still in print, I think.
Oh, grow up. I've been buying O'Reilly books for years and I don't recall ever getting them for free. Just like Microsoft, O'Reilly is in business to make money. The fact that many people -- not just Microsoft -- see the GPL as an impediment to their right to sell software at a profit shouldn't surprise anyone anymore than the fact that O'Reilly expects you to pay for thier books. If you're real issue is a denial of the right to own and sell software, then cut to the chase and declare yourself.
Hello....the GPL doesn't force anyone to do anything until and unless someone takes an alleged offender to court and makes it stick.
I don't have a clue about what MS may or may not be doing with other peoples' code -- and neither, I'm sure, do most, if not all, of these ranting Slashdot posters.
Consider the target of Ballmer's statements. It isn't the Slashdot crowd. MS is trying to convince the corporate crowd that open source threatens them. Frankly, if I was responsible for the bottom line of a corporation, I'd be wary about anything new and different with no perceived pay off, including open source.
If I though Linux could meet my requirements and was cheaper that Windows, then I'd take a serious look. That's where Linux and open source really threatens MS: in the marketplace. Not in some mystic world where licensing schemes mean something.
I think that is a very important point. It doesn't make any difference if that one product is technically inferior to competitive open source products, because businesses buy software for business reasons, not purely technical reasons. So, if you're betting the company on a piece of software, then, yes, you want legal recourse if you get scammed.
Microsoft has tremendous economic and intellectual resources. Those resources are effectively directed by one individual. The open source community has not yet found a way to accumulate, focus and exploit comparable resources. Perhaps it never will, because the community seems to have a gut fear of concentrated resources. So, instead of perceiving a single, viable and recognized business enterprise standing behind a single piece of software, open source is seen by many outside the community as an ad hoc collection of college-age wannabes banging out code at 2:00 a.m. And there's enough truth in that to color their perception of open source software that is developed with rigor and and discipline.
Whether or not something is "constructive criticism" or a "potshot" is, I suppose, a metter of definition. But, people who want to use a product are under no obligation at all to help the manufactuers of the product. People who use products are called consumers. If I go to the store and buy one of the Linux distributions, I'm a consumer buying a product. If it does not make me happy, for whatever reason, I am perfectly free to tell the world why I don't like it. That freedom to express my opinion does not encompass an obligation to provide any kind of constructive criticism to the manufacturers of the distribution.
On the other hand, if I consciously decided to join the Linux community because I believed the ideological goals of that community had merit (and sometimes they do), then I take on at least something of an oligation to do more than rant and rave, and to add something constructive to the mix.
If Linux development stays within the closed loop of the latter group, it will never have a future with the former group.
People who choose not to use Linux and take the time to explain their reasons in a public forum should be applauded, not given the back of someone's hand.
The argument that anyone who critiques Linux is under an obligation to write code to make it better is just plain silly. Writing professional code is hard, it takes a lot of time, And, it takes a lot of apprenticeship time learning how to code.
Linux is following in the tradition of Unix, in that many, if not most, of the developers working on it are self-selected coders who bring a coder's perspective to the user interface. KDE and GNOME are the first, imperfect, attempt to build inerfaces that a non-coder might actually try to use. But, I don't want everyone who criticizes KDE/GNOME to jump in there and start writing code to "improve" things, because most of them won't know squat about interface design.
If my ancestors had said "No reason to migrate to North America until we have all the problems of the old country solved" I probably wouldn't be living, much less living in the US. Ditto for lots of people in lots of countries.
No question that economics drives most migration and colonization. But someone still must go exploring first in order to discover the new lands.
Sometimes those explorers are driven by crass and antastic dreams of wealth, sometimes by idealistic visions. In either category, the human race seems to be following short. The 20th Century has a lot to answer for in terms of lives sacrificed in wars spawned by hate and malice, but we also have a lot to answer for because of our collective small-minded loss of nerve.
Sure, throw the rocks first, but be sure to go there yourself later.
Silly examples aside, I was just trying to illustrate the short-sightedness of assuming we have everything we need right here, and have no reason to go to the next valley. The same pressures that drove human migration across this planet -- population pressure, economic problems, war, get-rich-quick dreams, and, yes, a compelling urge to Be Somewhere Else -- will eventualy drive our migration into space. The universe belongs to us and anyone else who lives there. As soon as the technology is economically viable, we will Be Somewhere Else.
We don't need to risk lives travelling to the next valley, We are doing just fine here in this valley. Besides, the young males would try to overthrow Chief Wug if he sent a team to go to the next valley and they were killed by the Giant Fire-Breathing Invisible Ape that lives just beyond our valley.
Yes, we have everything we need here in Olduvai, so we don't need to do anything like explore what's over the horizon.
Sheesh...such noise! Someone dare speaks heresy and the True Believers resort to empty rhetoric and insults.
The problem with GUI's -- on any OS -- is that no one seems to have hade a new idea since Xerox rolled theirs out. Every GUI I've used is derivative of another. But then, so what? Why is that such a big problem?
BTW, learning to code -- and to code well -- isn't easy or quick. Whining at "users" to "get over it and write their own code" is about as realistic as telling "drivers" to "get over it and add two extra cylinders to that puny 4-cylinder you're complaining about..."
People have lots of stuff going on in their lives, most of it considerably more important that deciding what OS to use. So, maybe it is time to stop thinking about the rest of the world as "users" and start thinking about them as "customers", i.e., someone who will use the product that is Linux. And, of course, that means deciding that Linux, etc., are, in fact, products, not an ideological quest.
..."simply nothing I've seen in the *nix world that compares to Dreamweaver and HomeSite for development"
Bingo. UNIX was the first OS I was exposed to, even before DOS, but there's is simply nothing comparable to DreamWeaver, etc. Yes, I know about Quanta, etc. They just aren't there yet. Maybe given time, that will happen
This is just one element in the ongoing schism in the Linux community: Should the Linux world focus on the desktop market currently occupied by MS and Apple, or should it remain faithful to the UNIX tradition?
Right. Instead of engaging in all this sophmoric whining, why don't people turns their brains on and try to figure out a profitable business model for an industry that's supposed to Give It Away Free?
Non-commercial Linux might survive as a niche OS, just maybe, fueled by hobbyist and academic interest, so long as a dedicated core set of developers was willing to put in the time for free. But, if you want to see Linux play in the big leagues, someone is gonna have to figure out how to make money off of it.
Re:Zealotry Sure Helped OS/2...
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QT Mozilla Port
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· Score: 1
You're right, of course, the Windows it was "better" than was 3.1. Never had any server experience with the thing, but did use the client version to run my favorite DOS apps. (Sigh...It was hard to give up Brief, Lotus Magellan and Lotus Agenda. Still nothing like 'em.)
Re:Zealotry Sure Helped OS/2...
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QT Mozilla Port
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· Score: 1
..."OS/2 was actually a superior OS"
Agree. I think I owned and used every version of the OS/2 client from the 2.1 release to 4.0. It's a fine OS with a lot of happy users. Unfortunately, some of those users crossed the line separating zealous fan from zealous fanatic. They then began to pepper Usenet, etc., with constant postings that rather nonsubtly demeaned the intelligence of anyone using Windows. You don't encourage people to give your favorite OS a try by telling them they're stupid.
Zealotry Sure Helped OS/2...
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QT Mozilla Port
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· Score: 1
Hard-core OS/2 fans had a similar zealotry thing going several years ago. So...when was the last time you ran OS/2?
My definition of an OS zealot is someone who continues to use an OS that is clearly deficient in one or more aspects that are significant to that particular user. The motivation to use the OS -- whatever it is -- is stronger than the frustation engendered by its problems.
Note that this applies to any OS, not just Windows, or Linux.
The really important point is OS zealotry isn't going to improve that OS, any more than, say, fan zealotry can improve the performance of a sports team.
Well...actually, I can' think of any at the moment. Maybe there aren't any to be thought of. I dunno. Not my problem Linux is a piece of software, not a moral crusade.
My point was simply that, regardless of the obvious advantages of Linux, or most any other Unix-derived OS, over Windows, that only matters for people to whom the OS is important. That isn't very many people. Most folks don't care one way or the other. Improving the quality of the OS is no guarantee that more people will use that OS.
The Linux camp is a bit schizophrenic, it seems to me: Is the goal to defeat Microsoft as the mainstream desktop OS? Make the best OS and damn the market penetration? Or, forget about anything but the server market? In a world of infinite options, all 3 would be possible. In the real world, they probably aren't.
Consider the progress in air travel between the Wright's first flight in 1903 and 1943. Then, consider the lack of progress in space travel in the 40 years since Gagarin's flight.
Slashdot Mirror
"...go to university" is perfectly acceptable where the poster lives.
I know this community likes to engage in a lot of Microsoft bashing, but there are many reasons for their success as an OS vendor that have little or nothing to do with their bullying business tactics They've actually come pretty close to building a consumer OS that ordinary people can use without reading a book or taking a class. You can't -- yet -- say that for Linux.
Give people what they want, not what you think they should want. .
Don't forget that a popular Netscape browser contributes to the long-term viability of open source. The single greatest threat to open source is the increasing market space occupied by Internet Explorer. No one but hard-core fans will run an operating system for which no browser exists.
Heavy sigh.There's an inverse relation between the value of the Internet and its use as a marketing medium.
What I want is a browser that tells me where my upstream packets are going, and lets me permanently block those paths.
You know, I really think the average consumer oesn't care a bit about open souce, closed source, or shared source. Sure, maybe most people think that Microsoft shouldn't be such a bully, but that's not going to keep them from wanting to buy computers they can use without reading a book.
Wake up, folks. People don't really care about free software, open source and all the rest. No more than they'd be expected to care about Free Toasters and Open Refrigerators. They don't want choice if the choice means reading howto's and Unix manuals. They don't want to have the freedom to build their own computing environmen because computers are complicated, intimidating and scary.
If Microsoft disappeared tomorrow, Linux and all the other free Unixes still wouldn't be easy enough, simple enough, and attractive enough to fill the void.
So, rather then whining about how the Big Bully is keeping Your Favorite Unix LookAlike from taking over the world, how about getting busy and putting together on OS that is so outrageously good that people will wipe Windows from their PC's and buy it.
Well, it didn't work. But, the death throes took more than a year, 'cause little munchins faked data for their dog and pony shoes...and so it went up the ladder until heavyweights were sitting in front of Congressional committees mouthing the same lies. (Maybe unwittingly, maybe not.)
Faking it in those days was easy: Just put some phony numbers on a dot matrix printout.
Still, it was fun playing Lunar Lander on on a paper display, and using one of the first real CRT displays to send email.
Kernighan and Plaugher's "Software Tools", either the Ratfor or the Pascal version.Just a stupendous book, especially for understanding the basic concepts behind much of Unix. I managed to implement their code in Turbo Pascal for DOS, Still in print, I think.
Oh, grow up. I've been buying O'Reilly books for years and I don't recall ever getting them for free. Just like Microsoft, O'Reilly is in business to make money. The fact that many people -- not just Microsoft -- see the GPL as an impediment to their right to sell software at a profit shouldn't surprise anyone anymore than the fact that O'Reilly expects you to pay for thier books. If you're real issue is a denial of the right to own and sell software, then cut to the chase and declare yourself.
Not relevant. Most science on Earth is also conducted by unmanned machines. A lot of them are called computers
The purpose of human space travel is to Go Somewhere Else, not do research.
I don't have a clue about what MS may or may not be doing with other peoples' code -- and neither, I'm sure, do most, if not all, of these ranting Slashdot posters.
Consider the target of Ballmer's statements. It isn't the Slashdot crowd. MS is trying to convince the corporate crowd that open source threatens them. Frankly, if I was responsible for the bottom line of a corporation, I'd be wary about anything new and different with no perceived pay off, including open source.
If I though Linux could meet my requirements and was cheaper that Windows, then I'd take a serious look. That's where Linux and open source really threatens MS: in the marketplace. Not in some mystic world where licensing schemes mean something.
Microsoft has tremendous economic and intellectual resources. Those resources are effectively directed by one individual. The open source community has not yet found a way to accumulate, focus and exploit comparable resources. Perhaps it never will, because the community seems to have a gut fear of concentrated resources. So, instead of perceiving a single, viable and recognized business enterprise standing behind a single piece of software, open source is seen by many outside the community as an ad hoc collection of college-age wannabes banging out code at 2:00 a.m. And there's enough truth in that to color their perception of open source software that is developed with rigor and and discipline.
On the other hand, if I consciously decided to join the Linux community because I believed the ideological goals of that community had merit (and sometimes they do), then I take on at least something of an oligation to do more than rant and rave, and to add something constructive to the mix.
If Linux development stays within the closed loop of the latter group, it will never have a future with the former group.
The argument that anyone who critiques Linux is under an obligation to write code to make it better is just plain silly. Writing professional code is hard, it takes a lot of time, And, it takes a lot of apprenticeship time learning how to code.
Linux is following in the tradition of Unix, in that many, if not most, of the developers working on it are self-selected coders who bring a coder's perspective to the user interface. KDE and GNOME are the first, imperfect, attempt to build inerfaces that a non-coder might actually try to use. But, I don't want everyone who criticizes KDE/GNOME to jump in there and start writing code to "improve" things, because most of them won't know squat about interface design.
I want professionals writing the code I use.
No question that economics drives most migration and colonization. But someone still must go exploring first in order to discover the new lands.
Sometimes those explorers are driven by crass and antastic dreams of wealth, sometimes by idealistic visions. In either category, the human race seems to be following short. The 20th Century has a lot to answer for in terms of lives sacrificed in wars spawned by hate and malice, but we also have a lot to answer for because of our collective small-minded loss of nerve.
Silly examples aside, I was just trying to illustrate the short-sightedness of assuming we have everything we need right here, and have no reason to go to the next valley. The same pressures that drove human migration across this planet -- population pressure, economic problems, war, get-rich-quick dreams, and, yes, a compelling urge to Be Somewhere Else -- will eventualy drive our migration into space. The universe belongs to us and anyone else who lives there. As soon as the technology is economically viable, we will Be Somewhere Else.
Yes, we have everything we need here in Olduvai, so we don't need to do anything like explore what's over the horizon.
The problem with GUI's -- on any OS -- is that no one seems to have hade a new idea since Xerox rolled theirs out. Every GUI I've used is derivative of another. But then, so what? Why is that such a big problem?
BTW, learning to code -- and to code well -- isn't easy or quick. Whining at "users" to "get over it and write their own code" is about as realistic as telling "drivers" to "get over it and add two extra cylinders to that puny 4-cylinder you're complaining about..."
People have lots of stuff going on in their lives, most of it considerably more important that deciding what OS to use. So, maybe it is time to stop thinking about the rest of the world as "users" and start thinking about them as "customers", i.e., someone who will use the product that is Linux. And, of course, that means deciding that Linux, etc., are, in fact, products, not an ideological quest.
This is just one element in the ongoing schism in the Linux community: Should the Linux world focus on the desktop market currently occupied by MS and Apple, or should it remain faithful to the UNIX tradition?
Now, there's an idea. How about an occasional online version of the inevitable PBS fund drive?
Non-commercial Linux might survive as a niche OS, just maybe, fueled by hobbyist and academic interest, so long as a dedicated core set of developers was willing to put in the time for free. But, if you want to see Linux play in the big leagues, someone is gonna have to figure out how to make money off of it.
Agree. I think I owned and used every version of the OS/2 client from the 2.1 release to 4.0. It's a fine OS with a lot of happy users. Unfortunately, some of those users crossed the line separating zealous fan from zealous fanatic. They then began to pepper Usenet, etc., with constant postings that rather nonsubtly demeaned the intelligence of anyone using Windows. You don't encourage people to give your favorite OS a try by telling them they're stupid.
My definition of an OS zealot is someone who continues to use an OS that is clearly deficient in one or more aspects that are significant to that particular user. The motivation to use the OS -- whatever it is -- is stronger than the frustation engendered by its problems.
Note that this applies to any OS, not just Windows, or Linux.
The really important point is OS zealotry isn't going to improve that OS, any more than, say, fan zealotry can improve the performance of a sports team.
My point was simply that, regardless of the obvious advantages of Linux, or most any other Unix-derived OS, over Windows, that only matters for people to whom the OS is important. That isn't very many people. Most folks don't care one way or the other. Improving the quality of the OS is no guarantee that more people will use that OS.
The Linux camp is a bit schizophrenic, it seems to me: Is the goal to defeat Microsoft as the mainstream desktop OS? Make the best OS and damn the market penetration? Or, forget about anything but the server market? In a world of infinite options, all 3 would be possible. In the real world, they probably aren't.
Fear of moving into the future will destroy us.